“You’re probably going to go see The Avengers and, judging by the early reviews, you’ll probably enjoy it. How about — as a thank you to the creators who brought you these characters in the first place, who gave you something to enjoy so much — you match your ticket price as a donation to The Hero Initiative?” cartoonist Jon Morris wrote on his blog before the film’s release.

Spurgeon points out that these funds were raised without any effort on the Hero Initiative’s part, making them “bonus” money the organization wasn’t expecting or planning for. He also reached out to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, another charity mentioned as a possible recipient, but they haven’t seen a notable increase.

There’s no deadline for donating, so if you saw the film, or even if you haven’t and just want to support comics creators, head over to The Hero Initiative site to do so. You can also help them out by buying the upcoming Hero Comics 2012, their annual anthology by creators like Russ Heath and Darwyn Cooke (whose strip I included to the left), Kevin Eastman (who does a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles story), Chris Ryall and Ashley Wood, Richard Starkings and Dave Sim, and many more. Wait, Dave Sim is drawing an Elephantman story? That’s probably worth a look just for curiosity’s sake alone.

Paul Allen

Chris Jones

When I’ve suggested this to people both in person or online the responses are, about 75% of the time, either defensive or apathetic; I think the simple fact might be that people don’t want to be made to think that they’re doing something wrong by watching a movie, even if that’s not the argument that’s being made.

Red Comet

The problem I have with the Avengers movie guilt trip is that it’s based on a lie. Moviefone reported that Kirby got no credit in the movie, which was a lie obvious to anyone and everyone that had stayed for after credits scenes in every other Marvel Studios movie and seen Kirby get credit. The shameful part of it all was that all the comics sites out there reported this without question and then had to be dragged kicking and screaming into admitting it was untrue.

Michael May

I haven’t seen any coverage that actively tries to guilt anyone into contributing. It’s all been very fair: “This is what I’m doing; if you feel like me about the situation, maybe you’ll consider donating too.” Though I could just be reading different sites than you are.

Regardless, Kirby’s name in the credits is a tiny issue compared to how he and his family have historically been treated by Marvel. If it WERE true that his name was left out, it would just be another example of the larger problem. But if it’s not true, it doesn’t mean there’s not an issue.